We conducted India's First Social Distancing Party experiment - 'Safe & Sound' - to explore a way for artists and musicians to create a safe social gathering environment once again, given how the recent pandemic has affected the nightlife and entertainment industry and its livelihood.
The experiment was conducted by ANSWER in collaboration with The Hub & The Unscripted.
Watch a 1 minute summary of what went down: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBOKOYtA33s
Watch the full video here:
The Results?
1,00,000+ views and over 10,000 shares across social media. But what really came as a pleasant surprise was the heartfelt support extended towards this concept from across the country, including key stakeholders of the nightlife industry. We really feel this is a step in the right direction to get the industry back on track.
With no clear government policies or relief for the live events and music industry, we want to open a dialogue about the challenges and the solution.
Conclusion: One of our biggest take aways from 'Safe & Sound' was that, the idea is something that people are excited about & open to. With the current situation with the pandemic, people are too scared to step out for events, or public gatherings, and it might take a while before they are confident enough to venture out again. Our primary focus from his experiment was to show the proof of concept. This will help our audience gain the ‘social confidence’ that the need to attend events that they know are safe, again.
We also learnt that a strict set of ground rules are essential to maintain all the safety norms in place, as people always tend to make physical contact while interacting with their friends as social distancing is still something that we all need to get used to. The vibe of these parties many not instantly match the ones of packed clubs or concerts, but its definitely a step in the right direction & our attendees di have a great time. This edition that we did was a completely non contact, socially distant & a non alcoholic party. Moving on we would like to look at how we could make this happen at a night club once they have necessary permissions.
One thing is for sure, this model of parties is here to stay (for a while at least) & our research & experiments will continue till this a model widely accepted & executed across live events on the road back to normalcy.